As it’s become easier, and more affordable to create video content, quality in some cases has been driven down.

How To Ensure You’re Adding Value Through Video Comms

Value is often lacking when video is produced with no consideration for the target audience, or clear objectives for the content. If it’s a kneejerk reaction to ‘we need to produce a video because our competitors are’, it can just become a format to broadcast noise rather than real value.

This is why when clients come to me wanting a promo video, or any other video content; my first question is ‘why, what do you want to achieve?’

There are all kinds of goals you may have for your video production, from raising brand awareness or driving more traffic to your website, to educating and informing your target audience. The success of your video will often depend on an action you need viewers to take to meet these objectives. For example, if you want to raise brand awareness you may need viewers to share your content with their connections.

To get viewers to take these actions you need to deliver value. Why would anyone share your video content with their friends, family or business connections if it doesn’t give value? Value can be determined in different ways; entertainment value, educational value etc. And to understand what value you can deliver to your target audience, and therefore what will make them take the actions you require, you really need to understand who they are.

Customer Avatars and Buyer Personas

Regardless of whether your video communications are for internal or external use, it can be a useful exercise to create a customer avatar for your target audience. This information should help identify the key motivators and drivers that your audience has, those challenges, desires and needs that your video content can address.

A detailed customer avatar will include information such as age, gender, educational background, and income, as well as the key challenges and motivators of your targets. This information can then be used to inform your entire video content: from tone of voice, actors use (if any), music and graphics, and of course the core message being communicated.

There’s rarely a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to video comms, what works for one demographic, doesn’t necessarily work for another. Even internal comms need to be tailored specifically to the audience they are destined for. Your senior execs are going to engage with content in a different way to those employees working in other areas of your organisation, and therefore if you want successful video productions you need to add value for them specifically.

Are You Adding Value Checklist

So before you sign off on your next video production, ask yourself the following five questions:

What are the objectives for the video content?

Who is the target audience for this content?

Does the video add value for this target audience?

Is it clear what action viewers should take?

Are we broadcasting noise or value?

If you have any questions about how to target your video productions at your audience please get in touch directly.